Category Archives for Airports.
While most of the focus has been on airline workforce issues, and whether a federal deadline of December 8 to comply will wreak havoc on holiday travel (American Airlines says they’ll begin termination proceedings on the Wednesday before thanksgiving!), a big mess could come out of TSA screeners ineligible to work because they’re unvaccinated.
I’ve never once said what I really want for dinner is what they’re serving at the airport. That’s because the constraints of selling food in the airport – bringing everything through security, usually cooking with electricity, lacking storage space, high rents and a need to serve the median consumer taste quickly – means that airport restaurants are bad. And you pay through the nose for the privilege.
Still, at Philadelphia airport they think you might want curbside pickup of your dinner from the airport, and they’re now set up to do just that.
A friend had given me a tip that if you wait to request an Uber until you’re actually in the garage where you meet your ride, you’ll often pay $20 less for the same trip. That seemed odd, but I decided to give it a try.
Any study which purports to show Miami and New York JFK are the best U.S. airports is self-refuting.
Airports are worth billions of dollars, but they generally don’t contribute to paying for local services even though they’re almost invariably owned by local governments. That’s because federal regulations don’t allow local governments to receive airport net revenue (profit). This is also unique in the world – governments elsewhere generate substantial revenue from their airports.
Airport concessions can be high-priced. But the bigger challenge is that so many of them remain closed as concessionaires struggle to find employees (and the airport works hard to keep wages down). That means fewer places to buy snacks and long lines for the places that are open.
One man has stepped into the breach, sensing an entrepreneurial opportunity.
Richard Reid, the “Shoe Bomber”, is a British career criminal who converted to Islam in prison and came a member of Al Qaeda. He attempted to blow up American Airlines flight 63 from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001. The plot was foiled by several factors, from high humidity to Reid’s own perspiration dampening the fuse along with another passenger smelling smoke.
He was arrested, charged, convicted and eventually given 3 life sentences plus 110 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
There are premium airport departure, connection and arrival services that you can buy all over the world. Some are offered by airlines, others by airports, and some by third party services. The services can run hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Denver’s airport is actually trialing a meet and greet service to assist passengers with departures, arrivals and connections. And at this point the service is free.
The TSA shared video of frozen chickens and chicken parts, stuck together in a block, circling an airport’s baggage carousel. The chicken wasn’t wrapped or inside of luggage. And there’s no baggage tag apparent in the video.
TSA used the opportunity to make a number of puns, but there’s no security rule against checking frozen chicken as luggage.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
